Management of Blister Beetles in Alfalfa

Life cycle, damage, and treatment of blister beetles, including ramifications for horses and damage prevention

NF02-551 Management of Blister Beetles in Alfalfa

Adult blister beetles (Epicauta spp.) tend to be gregarious, and several may be observed feeding on the same flowering plant such as alfalfa or sometimes soybeans, goldenrod or occasionally musk thistle, They feed primarily on leaves and flowers but do little damage to crops. This NebFact discusses the life cycle, damage, treatment, and prevention avoidance of the blister beetle here in Nebraska

Diagnostic assessment and lesion evaluation of chronic deoxynivalenol ingestion in growing swine

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a common mycotoxin contaminant of cereal grains and is associated with reduced feed intake or refusal in swine. The objective of this assessment was to determine if diagnostic tests or lesions could assist in diagnosing chronic DON ingestion in swine. Twenty-four 11-week-old cross-bred pigs of both genders were fed either an ad libitum diet without deliberate contamination of DON (Control; n = 6) or a diet containing approximately 5 mg per kg DON (DON-fed; n = 18). Dried distillers’ grains with solubles were the source of DON for the diets. Serum analytes were measured at the beginning and conclusion of the 120-day study. All pigs were necropsied and liver analyte concentrations, bone density, and bone ash were determined. Differences in serum analyte concentrations, macroscopic or microscopic lesions, and bone ash and density were not detected between treatment groups (P \u3e .05). Liver selenium concentrations were lower (P = .02) in DON-fed pigs. Results suggest DON ingestion is not correlated with lesions or bone integrity, but can significantly lower liver selenium concentrations

Grazing Management Effects on Sediment, Phosphorus, and Pathogen Loading of Streams in Cool-Season Grass Pastures

Erosion and runoff from pastures may lead to degradation of surface water. A 2-yr grazing study was conducted to quantify the effects of grazing management on sediment, phosphorus (P), and pathogen loading of streams in cool-season grass pastures. Six adjoining 12.1-ha pastures bisected by a stream in central Iowa were divided into three treatments: continuous stocking with unrestricted stream access (CSU), continuous stocking with restricted stream access (CSR), and rotational stocking (RS). Rainfall simulations on stream banks resulted in greater (P \u3c 0.10) proportions of applied precipitation and amounts of sediment and P transported in runoff from bare sites than from vegetated sites across grazing treatments. Similar differences were observed comparing vegetated sites in CSU and RS pastures with vegetated sites in CSR pastures. Bovine enterovirus was shed by an average of 24.3% of cows during the study period and was collected in the runoff of 8.3 and 16.7% of runoff simulations on bare sites in CSU pastures in June and October of 2008, respectively, and from 8.3% of runoff simulations on vegetated sites in CSU pastures in April 2009. Fecal pathogens (bovine coronavirus [BCV], bovine rotavirus group A, andEscherichia coli O157:H7) shed or detected in runoff were almost nonexistent; only BCV was detected in feces of one cow in August of 2008. Erosion of cut-banks was the greatest contributor of sediment and P loading to the stream; contributions from surface runoff and grazing animals were considerably less and were minimized by grazing management practices that reduced congregation of cattle by pasture streams

Grazing Management Effects on Sediment, Phosphorus, and Pathogen Loading of Pasture Streams

In order to quantify the sources of sediment, phosphorus (P), and pathogen loading of pasture streams, six 30-acre pastures, bisected by a stream, were stocked with 15 fall-calving cows from mid-May through midOctober of two years by continuous stocking with unrestricted stream access (CSU), continuous stocking with stream access restricted to 16-foot wide stabilized crossings (CSR), or rotational stocking (RS). Cows in RS pastures excreted less fecal P than cows in the CSU and CSR pastures. The proportion of water applied and the amounts of sediment and P in precipitation runoff during rainfall simulations were greater from bare sites on the stream banks of CSU or RS pastures than vegetated sites of CSU, RS, or CSR pastures. Amounts of stream bank erosion did not differ between grazing management treatments. When sources of sediment and P were compared, stream bank erosion contributed 99.5 and 94.4% of the sediment and P loading of the stream. At the stocking rate used in this experiment, direct fecal deposition in the pasture stream contributed more P than transport in precipitation runoff. The incidence of fecal pathogens E. coli O157:H7, bovine coronavirus, and bovine rotavirus shedding in the feces of the cows in this experiment as well as in the runoff from the rainfall simulations was extremely low. These results suggest that the major source of sediment and P loading of pasture streams is stream bank erosion primarily associated with stream hydrology. Grazing management practices that reduce congregation of grazing cattle near pasture streams will reduce sediment and nutrient loading resulting from direct fecal deposition or transport in precipitation runoff. While fecal pathogens may be potential pollutants of pasture streams, pathogen loading of pasture streams by grazing cattle is infrequent and dependent upon the pathogen shedding, temporal\spatial distribution of grazing cattle, and surface runoff from stream banks, in respective order

Common Avian Infection Plagued the Tyrant Dinosaurs

Background: Tyrannosaurus rex and other tyrannosaurid fossils often display multiple, smooth-edged full-thickness erosive lesions on the mandible, either unilaterally or bilaterally. The cause of these lesions in the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen FMNH PR2081 (known informally by the name 'Sue') has previously been attributed to actinomycosis, a bacterial bone infection, or bite wounds from other tyrannosaurids

Energy's role in the extraversion (dis)advantage: How energy ties and task conflict help clarify the relationship between extraversion and proactive performance

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordWhile academic and practitioner literatures have proposed that extraverts are at an advantage in team‐based work, it remains unclear exactly what that advantage might be, how extraverts attain such an advantage, and under which conditions. Theory highlighting the importance of energy in the coordination of team efforts helps to answer these questions. We propose that extraverted individuals are able to develop more energizing relationships with their teammates and as a result are seen as proactively contributing to their team. However, problems in coordination (i.e., team task conflict) can reverse this extraversion advantage. We studied 27 project‐based teams at their formation, peak performance, and after disbandment. Results suggest that when team task conflict is low, extraverts energize their teammates and are viewed by others as proactively contributing to the team. However, when team task conflict is high, extraverts develop energizing relationships with fewer of their teammates and are not viewed as proactively contributing to the team. Our findings regarding energizing relationships and team task conflict clarify why extraversion is related to proactive performance and in what way, how, and when extraverts may be at a (dis)advantage in team‐based work

An artificial intelligence tool for heterogeneous team formation in the classroom

Nowadays, there is increasing interest in the development of teamwork skills in the educational context. This growing interest is motivated by its pedagogical effectiveness and the fact that, in labour contexts, enterprises organize their employees in teams to carry out complex projects. Despite its crucial importance in the classroom and industry, there is a lack of support for the team formation process. Not only do many factors influence team performance, but the problem becomes exponentially costly if teams are to be optimized. In this article, we propose a tool whose aim it is to cover such a gap. It combines artificial intelligence techniques such as coalition structure generation, Bayesian learning, and Belbin's role theory to facilitate the generation of working groups in an educational context. This tool improves current state of the art proposals in three ways: i) it takes into account the feedback of other teammates in order to establish the most predominant role of a student instead of self-perception questionnaires; ii) it handles uncertainty with regard to each student's predominant team role; iii) it is iterative since it considers information from several interactions in order to improve the estimation of role assignments. We tested the performance of the proposed tool in an experiment involving students that took part in three different team activities. The experiments suggest that the proposed tool is able to improve different teamwork aspects such as team dynamics and student satisfaction

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

We explore the innovation performance benefits of alliances for spin-off firms, in particular spin-offs either from other firms or from public research organizations. During the early years of the emerging combinatorial chemistry industry, the industry on which our empirical analysis focuses, spin-offs engaged in alliances with large and established partners, partners of similar type and size, and with public research organizations, often for different reasons. We seek to understand to what extent alliances of spin-offs with other firms (either large- or small- and medium-sized firms) affected their innovation performance and also how this performance may have been affected by their corporate or public research background. We find evidence that in general alliances of spin-offs with other firms, in particular alliances with large firms, increased their innovation performance. Corporate spin-offs that formed alliances with other firms outperformed public research spin-offs with such alliances. This suggests that, in terms of their innovation performance, corporate spin-offs that engaged in alliances with other firms seemed to have benefitted from their prior corporate background. Interestingly, it turns out that the negative impact of alliances on the innovation performance of public research spin-offs was largely affected by their alliances with small- and medium-sized firms